biography
| name: |
Mercouri, Melina
|
| |
originally Anna Amalia Mercouri
|
pronunciation:
[merkooree]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1923–94)
|
| biography:
| Film actress and politician, born in Athens, Greece. She studied drama at the National Theatre in Athens, made her stage debut in 1944, and established her reputation as Blanche in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1949). She began in films in 1955, and found international fame in 1960 in Never on Sunday. Always politically involved, she was exiled from Greece (1967–74), during which time she played in several British and US productions, such as Topkapi (1964) and Gaily, Gaily (1969). She returned to be elected to parliament as a socialist in 1977, and became minister of culture (1981–9, 1993–4). She devoted the last years of her life to a worldwide campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles. |
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